TheDailyBeast: The Greatest Prison Escapes

Greatest Prison Escapes

An estimated 131 inmates escaped from a prison in Piedras Negras, Mexico, on Sept. 17 in a real-life prison break. From an Alcatraz raincoat raft to a mattress in Nazi Germany, The Daily Beast rounds up other daring escapes.

More from this Slideshow

An estimated 131 inmates escaped from a prison in Piedras Negras, Mexico, on Sept. 17 in a real-life prison break. From an Alcatraz raincoat raft to a mattress in Nazi Germany, The Daily Beast rounds up other daring escapes.

Supposedly using a tunnel 10 feet long by 4 feet wide, about 131 inmates in a Mexican prison escaped to freedom Monday. The alleged tunnel, which began in a wood shop inside the prison, had "been there for months," according to Coahuila Attorney General Homero Ramos. But the massive escape is starting to look more like an inside job. The Associated Press reported Sept. 20 that 16 prison officials - including the prison director and two top aides - have been detained based on "credible evidence" that employees aided the escape.

One of the largest mass escapes in history occurred in April 2011 when close to 500 inmates in southern Afghanistan crawled to freedom through a tunnel 1,100 feet long. Al Jazeera reported that at least 100 members of the group were Taliban commanders, a fact that led President Hamid Karzai to dub the escape a “disaster.” The success of the escape, which was launched at 11 p.m., was attributed largely to the assistance of the Taliban, whose rented house was at the freedom end of the tunnel—where vehicles sat at the ready. Only 26 of the escapees reportedly were captured—two of them were killed.

Sentenced to 30 years in prison for a failed robbery turned murder, Pascal Payet had already successfully escaped French prison twice when he found himself in a penitentiary for a third time. The scheming Payet’s previous two escapes had been the stuff of movies—helicopters on the roof, masked men, etc.—and his third escape did not disappoint. After hijacking a helicopter in Cannes, four disguised and armed men lifted Payet from the roof of the Grasse Prison in southeast France. The escape was successful, but Payet was discovered three months later in Spain.

A nondescript maximum-security prison located just outside the small town of Kenedy, Texas, it gained notoriety in December of 2000 when seven men made a brazen attempt at an escape—and succeeded. Led by George Rivas, a career criminal serving 18 life terms, the men escaped after overtaking maintenance officers through use of an ax, hijacking a van, and then driving out of the prison in civilian clothes. Ranging in age from 23 to 39, the so named Texas Seven were front and center on "America’s Most Wanted" until four were recaptured a little more than a month later.

In September 1983, 38 inmates—most of whom were members of the IRA, jailed for politically motivated crimes—escaped the maximum security HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland. Surrounded by 15-foot walls topped with barbed wire, the Maze was considered one of the highest-security prisons in Europe. Seizing control of the prison through the use of six smuggled handguns, the escapees used extreme violence, which included stabbing and beating the guards, to reach the outside. From there they hijacked a van and drove to freedom. The escape left several guards injured and at least one dead. In this largest-scale escape Northern Ireland had ever seen, more than half the prisoners were recaptured shortly afterward.

In an escape he later claimed differed greatly from the version in the movie Midnight Express, young American Billy Hayes escaped a prison in Turkey to which he had been sentenced to 30 years. Arrested in Istanbul in 1970 for attempting to smuggle two kilograms of hashish out of the country, Hayes was sentenced to five years in prison. Weeks away from his release, the American student was horrified to learn his sentence had been extended to 30 years. Determined to flee the harsh conditions of Imrali Island, Hayes hid in a concrete bin for several days before hijacking a small fishing boat at the local harbor and escaping to Greece. He eventually made it back to the U.S., where he wrote an autobiography about his journey.